Jackson seniors look back on historic hoops season

It isn’t easy to learn a coach’s system, play under it for three years, and then, for your senior season, shift into a completely new system and have immediate success.

The 2022-23 Jackson boys’ basketball seniors faced that exact adversity and, in turn, appeared in three regular season tournament title games for the first time in a decade and made a run to the state semifinals for the first time since 1934.

Some said the transition from former coach Darrin Scott’s system into new Jackson coach Kory Thoma’s system was initially weird, but the overall testimony is that Thoma’s system worked.

The motto for this system: defense travels.

“Our motto was that defense travels, so that was a really big staple for him,” Jackson senior Kaed Winborne said. “He came in and his philosophy of basketball was that we're gonna guard 94 feet. The whole length of the floor.

“He used to say ‘Guard them back on the bench and guard them when they go back on the bus.’ He is a very, very big defensive guy. He trusts that offense will come with defense.”

It’s hard to trust in a new coach and a new system immediately, but the class all had prior knowledge of Thoma, including playing under him in lower levels of basketball.

“It really wasn't that weird for me because he was my coach for a while when we were younger,” Jackson senior Steven Schneider said. “I knew him pretty well, and I liked him when we were younger, so I was pretty comfortable with it.”

The new system allowed players to rise into new roles on the team, and senior Grant Borgfield took this role in stride. Borgfield quickly garnered love from Jackson fans, becoming one of the strongest defenders on the team during his senior campaign in his first season under Thoma.

Throughout the season, Borgfield received some of the toughest guard assignments on the squad, and he became a defensive fixture under Thoma’s new system.

“It was kind of awesome to hear that from Coach Thoma,” Borgfield said. “All my teammates have trusted me and the ability for me to lock down any person that they need me to guard.”

Schneider became one of the first players off the bench in the new system, proving to be of high value in a sixth-man role. His six points in a tight win against Lindbergh in a district semifinal finished second on the team as he thrived in his new role.

“If I got tired or needed something, Steven would come in and he was able to do just as good as I would,” Borgfield said.

Clayton Ernst made the earliest appearance among the four-man senior cast, becoming a regular starter during his class’s Covid-19-shortened freshman season. His 6-foot-8 frame and talented roster of post moves gave Scott all he needed to write him in at the center position, splitting time with 2022 graduate Nick Wasilewski down low.

He credits his breakout senior season, however, to a new system that allowed him to find new levels of success on both sides of the ball.

“I honestly thought I thrived a lot more under more defensive sets and simpler offensive sets,” Ernst said. “It allowed us to play more, defense prevents, causing more offense and more turnovers.”

The entire team felt the success, going undefeated up until reaching the SEMO Conference Tournament championship for the first time since 2013 before eventually falling to archrival Cape Central.

When defense turns into offense, it boosts confidence and helps the guards get out in transition more. Winborne’s breakout season saw him sign with Webster University toward the end of the season, and he credited the new system to his boost in play.

“I was super confident in myself, as well as my teammates,” Winborne said. “I thought it played a role. I mean, it showed throughout the whole regular season and postseason. Confidence was one of my main things that I've been trying to work on.”

The senior class hadn’t seen a district championship since their freshman year, which is why it sent shockwaves through the local basketball community when the Indians emerged from the Class 6 District 1 bracket and took down Eureka to punch their ticket to the state final four.

“It was insanely fun, you know, making history,” Schneider said. “First time being that far since 1934, and doing it with those three definitely made it so much more fun. I mean, the rest of the team, too, but for us, we’ve been together for a while now. That was something special for us.”

“Those guys will always be my brothers,” Winborne said. “If I had to pick one memory from this year as my favorite, it would definitely be going to state, going to the final four. All the bus rides, the hotel rooms, the team meals. Everything was just – it was a blast. I wouldn't trade it for anything.”

They leave the program in a great spot, emerging as district champions and finishing with a trophy from the state championships for the first time since the Great Depression.

“Coach Thoma came in and took over the program,” Schneider said. “He changed the culture of it, and he's done a very good job with it.

“Something that he said was ‘defense travels,’ and that was really prominent in our playoff games because we didn't score over 40 in a lot of them, but we still won.”

When asked what the future holds for Jackson basketball, a few names came up frequently: Blayne Harris, Judd Thoma, Kole Deck, Gavin Holdman, and Braedon Thoma. But the program runs deep, and Ernst says that the future begins with development.

“I think the coaching staff is going to do a really good job of building the program from the bottom up,” Ernst said. “From junior high up, instead of starting in high school.

“We know that, obviously, coach Thoma was already heavily involved in junior high athletics as well. I think reaching out to those kids as well is going to help the program out in the long run. It's a really good idea and it will help us out in the long run and build our program further than what it already has been just this year.”